Fraud: The New Normal in Government
“One sees by experience in our times that the princes who have done great things are those who have taken little account of faith and have known how to get around men ‘s brains with their astuteness”.[1] This observation may seem to come from a populist think tank but it is from 1532 (Machiavelli, The…
Read MoreDemocratic Resilience in the United States: Containing Trump’s Threat to Democracy
Since regaining the presidency in 2025, Donald Trump and his allies have launched a devastating attack on American democracy. The targets of this attack are the checks and balances, and the civil and political rights that have provided the foundations of our constitutional system for over two centuries. In the few short months of Trump’s…
Read MoreIndia’s Conservative Revolution: The Postcolonial Left meets the Hindu Right
A strange thing happened at a conference on “Decolonization of the Indian Mind” organized by a Hindu nationalist outfit and attended by the bigwigs of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), the politburo of the Hindu Right. [1] One of the speakers, Rakesh Sinha, a member of the upper house of the Indian parliament and a…
Read MoreEventful Protests Against the Israeli Genocide: The Italian “Hot Summer” for a Free Palestine
On September 22 2025 a 24 hour general strike was called by several grassroot unions in Italy to protests the complicity of the Italian government with the Israeli genocide in Gaza, support the effort of the Global Sumud Flottilla to bring humanitarian help to the starving population, and call for an end to the war…
Read MoreInvestigating Putinism: History Over Ideology
In today’s Russia, memory politics has supplanted ideology as the primary instrument of political legitimation. This hinders efforts to explain the unique features of Putinism by approaching it as a political ideology. Is Putinism a Form of Fascism? Investigating Putinism means understanding why, for the past 25 years, Russians have accepted life in a…
Read MoreApocalypse Now? The Evolution of Trump’s Policies Towards Iran
In a March 30, 2025, telephone interview with Kristen Welker of NBC News, U.S. President Donald Trump stated: “If they [the Iranians] don’t make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen.” This vitriolic statement was reflective of Donald Trump’s desire to remake the Persian…
Read MoreA Termite’s Guide to Undermining SNAP
Conservatives long have had it in for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.[1] Ronald Reagan hated it so much that he refused to reverse severe program cuts even when faced with mounting hunger amidst a deep recession, choosing instead to send surplus “government cheese” to states to distribute to the…
Read MoreThe Government Attack on Public Health Research
I have been conducting transdisciplinary research on HIV/AIDS, COVID, overdose, and related topics for over forty years. In my HIV research, I have had to try to understand a virus that, without intervention, destroys its host human body within about ten years—which might look like a recipe for a viral disease’s self-destruction. Underlying this, however,…
Read MoreAmerican Higher Education in the Era of Trump
Introduction: The Faustian Bargain Higher education in America long ago sold its soul to corporate America. Whether through its heavy dependence on corporate funding for business schools and scientific research, the rebranding of students as “customers,” the evisceration of tenure to promote flexibility in hiring, or the adoption of top-down, management-heavy infrastructures, universities have steadily…
Read MoreMamdani, a “New Municipalism”, and the Undertow of Party Elites
The fight is on for the future of cities and with it the future of democracy in the country. The Trump administration’s ham-fisted deployment of federal troops and the National Guard to usurp local policing and bolster ICE roundups of “immigrant-looking” residents is being challenged by mayors and governors and by citizens outraged by the…
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